The Translational Research Group of INCLIVA Ischaemic Heart Disease and Cardiology Clinical Hospital of Valencia show for the first time in patients with acute myocardial infarction there is a deregulation of the PD-1 protein. The work was recently published in the International Journal of Cardiology.  

The PD-1 English "Programmed Death 1-PD-1" is an immunomodulatory protein: if present, our immune system does not eliminate the malignant tumor cells. The PD-1 are receivers placed on the surface of cells of the immune system to combat preventing external invasion correctly; In particular, PD-1 is the mechanism used by the cancer cells to "override" the immune system to regulate inflammation. He is a promising therapeutic target in various diseases such as colon cancer and skin cancer.  

"While so far there were no previous studies that showed some involvement of PD-1 in heart disease, yes it is demonstrated that myocardial infarction there is an inflammatory process and decided to investigate whether the PD-1 protein related to inflammatory processes, was also present in acute myocardial infarction, "explains Dr.. María José Forteza.  

During the project, 85 patients with myocardial infarction Clinical Hospital and 30 control patients whose medical tests showed they had not suffered a stroke were examined. The work has shown that during the first hours of infarction a very sharp increase in the expression of PD-1 on T cells occurs and then drops sharply in the 24 hours after infarction.  

Furthermore, this is significantly associated with deregulation infarct size, so that the patients after 24 hours have lower levels of PD-1 on their T cells have an increased infarct size.  

According to Dr. Vicente Bodí, coordinator of the research group, the thesis director and cardiologist at the Clinical Hospital of Valencia, "the finding opens a window into possible therapies based on immunomodulation of PD-1 in order to reduce the infarct size. "  

The results are shown both in patients with acute myocardial infarction and in a porcine animal model of myocardial infarction in addition has been observed that the presence of PD-1 in the infarcted myocardium. The findings have been highlighted during the research you have done the research for his doctoral thesis, which has studied the immune response in acute myocardial infarction.  

According to the World Heart Federation, the world die each year nearly 8 million people for this cause, while in Spain infarction each year kills about 40,000 people. In Spanish hospitals, the most frequent cause of hospitalization in people over 65 is heart failure.

Photography By Heikenwaelder Hugo, heikenwaelder@aon.at, www.heikenwaelder.at [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons